Constructing a Culture
Adults created a network of resources and tools to coerce and disseminate their concocted standard of upstanding American youth.
Post-World War II life had changed as GI’s returned home to begin families, and the rise of the middle-class began with the creation of suburbanization in the early 1950s.[1] This changing landscape promoted homogenization, blandness and conformity.[2] Furthermore, American post-war life gave rise to a new class of people: teenagers.
Despite the growing terror spreading across the American landscape, teenagers were viewed as a "threat" that could be controlled. Film and print media attempted to constrain teenagers by using different modes of educational material. Informational sources such as The Journal on Audio-Visual Learning and Educational Screen: The Audio-Visual Magazine aimed at disseminating information and promoting conformist ideology to educators, who in turn, cultivated and circulated "idealist" dogma upon their students, American teenagers. Across America, teens were "tuning in" to films created by production agencies such as Cornet. During this same moment, magazines such as LIFE circulated photo-essays concerning the new group and acted as an agent of culture to the public using multidimensional images. The hope was that the image would "speak louder than words" and further impress white, bourgeois ideals upon the impressionable youth.
Post-World War II life had changed as GI’s returned home to begin families, and the rise of the middle-class began with the creation of suburbanization in the early 1950s.[1] This changing landscape promoted homogenization, blandness and conformity.[2] Furthermore, American post-war life gave rise to a new class of people: teenagers.
Despite the growing terror spreading across the American landscape, teenagers were viewed as a "threat" that could be controlled. Film and print media attempted to constrain teenagers by using different modes of educational material. Informational sources such as The Journal on Audio-Visual Learning and Educational Screen: The Audio-Visual Magazine aimed at disseminating information and promoting conformist ideology to educators, who in turn, cultivated and circulated "idealist" dogma upon their students, American teenagers. Across America, teens were "tuning in" to films created by production agencies such as Cornet. During this same moment, magazines such as LIFE circulated photo-essays concerning the new group and acted as an agent of culture to the public using multidimensional images. The hope was that the image would "speak louder than words" and further impress white, bourgeois ideals upon the impressionable youth.
[1] Donald Miller, “Program 23: The Fifties/From War to Normalcy,” Video, Fred Barzyk (2000; WGBH Education Foundation.), Online Video.https://www.learner.org/series/biographyofamerica/prog23/transcript/index.html.
[2] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “The Cold War,” Digital History, Retrieved (January 7,2016)
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3401.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3401.
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This page references:
- Motor Scooter Fun
- The Changing Style of Fashion
- Saturday Night Dance Party
- Teen-Age Boys: Faced with war, they are just the same as they have always been
- Chores: It's a Girl Thing
- Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of their Own
- Feminine, Frilly, Full-Skirted Finery
- Bored Kids
- FILM "Projector"
